A key to the success of your website is to view it as a lead generating machine, and a big contributor to it’s success is the presence of an effective call to action. Every website and Facebook page should be designed to ensure you are gathering information from your visitors, be it filling in a contact form, signup for a newsletter, requesting a free download or simply “liking” your page. Here are several ways to ensure your call to action WORKS for you:
1. Convince the users
Why should users do what you want them to do? Before a user is willing to complete a call to action they have to recognize the need. Take infomercials for example. Before they ask people to respond, they first identify a problem and present a product that solves that problem.
Communicate the benefits of your call to action. What will the user get out of completing the call to action?
2. Offer something extra
Sometimes you may have to sweeten the deal to encourage users to complete a call to action.
Incentives could include discounts, entry into a competition or a free gift.
Everybody loves freebies.
3. Use active language!
A call to action should be crystal clear and tell users what you want them to do. They should include active words such as:
- Like
- Buy
- Register
- Subscribe
- Donate
- Download
- Fill out
- Call now
All of these words encourage users to take an action. Also you may want to create a sense of urgency and a need to act now, these words can be used alongside phrases such as:
- Offer expires January 31st
- For a limited time only
- Order now and receive a free gift
4. Be in the Right Place
Another important factor is the position of your call to action on the page. Ideally it should be placed high on the page and in the central column so people see it right away without scrolling.
5. Make Your Offer Pop
To make your call to action even more prominent, don’t just rely on positioning. Use also the space around it – White space. The more space around a call to action the more attention is drawn to it. If you clutter up your call to action with surrounding content it will be lost in the page.
6. Use Colours that Stand Out
Colour is an effective way of drawing attention to elements, especially if you use alternative colours. For example, if your website uses blues and grey, your call to action will work very well in highlighted orange. This extreme contrast leaves your users in no doubt as to the next thing they should do.
7. Size matters
Make your call to action big. We have already established that position, colour and white space are equally important.However the size does play a large part. The bigger your call to action, the more chance it will be noticed.
8. Have a call to action on every page
A call to action should not just be limited to the homepage or landing page. Every page of your site should have some form of call to action that leads the user on. If the user reaches a dead-end they will leave without responding to your call.
But your call to action does not need to be the same for each page. Instead you can use smaller actions that lead the user towards your ultimate goal.
9. Bring it home
So you have created an awesomely clear call to action and the user clicks on it, now what? The rest of the process needs to be as carefully thought through as the call to action itself.
So consider what happens when a user does respond to your call to action. The process should be as simple as possible. Don’t ask any information from the user that you don’t actually need.
Now, look at your own website and see if you can answer “yes” to using these 9 methods to make your site WORK for you!
email2friend